Ugley Business (13 page)

Docherty had Guinness—what else?—and I ordered a half of Bulmers. I had a cheese sandwich and chips, and it tasted
good
.

By the time the chatty landlady came to take our plates away, I was a pint and a half of strong cider up, tired and pretty happy. I didn’t want to have to walk back through the rain, which had just started, to the car, which probably wouldn’t. The Day From Hell seemed to be getting marginally better.

“Do you reckon anyone will have come to the car?” I asked Docherty. He was looking damn fine in the low light of the pub.

He looked at his watch. “We’ve been gone two hours,” he said. “Quite probably the car will have been nicked by now.”

I wasn’t really alarmed—after all, it wasn’t our car. Surely the hire people had insurance for that sort of thing?

“Do we have to go back and check?” I asked dubiously, and Docherty looked me over.

“I think you’d better stay here,” he said. “I’ll see if I can get a ride out there.”

He went to speak to the landlady, who picked up a phone and made a call, and ten minutes later a tractor trundled up outside the pub.

No one flinched, not even me, because I’ve been getting stuck in tractor-induced traffic jams since I was old enough to say, “Bloody things”. This was quite a young age.

To my surprise, Docherty got back to his feet and went outside. Minutes later, the tractor rumbled off down the street, endangering elderly buildings as it went.

“Where did he go?” I asked my cider.

“Flaherty’s giving him a lift to your car,” the landlady said in a delightfully Oirish accent you could have cut with something sharp. “If it’s broken, he’ll tow it back.”

“That’s nice of Flaherty,” I said, hiccupping over the name so it came out like ‘flirty.’

“What is it you’re doing in Kilgarry?” the landlady wanted to know.

“We’re going somewhere. I’m not sure where. Docherty knows where.”

“Docherty? Does he not have a first name?”

I blinked at her. “I’m not sure he does.”

The landlady laughed and took a seat at my table, lighting up a cigarette and blowing out a happy cloud of smoke. It was then I knew I was drunk, because I wanted to ask her for a cigarette, and I’ve never smoked. Well, once or twice, but I never really saw the point.

“So is it a dirty weekend you’re on?” she asked, sounding—and looking—like Marty’s great-great-whatever-grandmother in
Back To The Future III
. Big, strong accent. Big, strong red hair. Both probably fake, but do you think I cared?

“Well, it’s sort of wet and muddy,” I said, “but so far not too dirty. It’s hard to get excited in a Mark V Fiesta, you know?”

Clearly she didn’t, but she nodded anyway. “Do you have a name, then?”

I extended my hand, beaming. It’s true, you know, about Ireland, that strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet. “Sophie.”

“Well, I’m Sheelagh. And aren’t you just the English Rose? Isn’t she pretty, fellas?”

I blushed drunkenly to a chorus of appreciation from the leathery regulars.

“And why is it you’ve come all the way to the Old Country with such a grand fella if you’re not a wee bit naughty?”

Hmm, naughty with Docherty. That idea held definite potential. “We’ve come to meet someone. We’re colleagues.”

“Sure, and I’m Catherine Zeta Jones! I’ve seen the way you’re lookin’ at each other. Sure, you could light a fire.”

It was so charming the way every “I” became an “Oi”. Loight a foire. Very Cranberries. Dolores thingummy.

“Will I bring you another drink?” Sheelagh asked, and I thought about the rich, cool, sweet cider, and nodded. She got up to fetch it for me, and as she did my phone started ringing, and everyone in the pub regarded me with great interest.

“Docherty? Is the car okay?”

“There’s a note,” he said, sounding pissed off. “They came to fix the car but we weren’t there, so could we call them at our earliest convenience.”

“Kind of playing it fast and loose with their use of the word ‘convenience’,” I said, and looked around to see if anyone had heard me be so funny.

“Flaherty’s going to tow it back to the pub for us and maybe we can get a taxi or something.”

“Right. Taxi.” I could ask my new best friend Sheelagh about that.

“I’ll see you in fifteen,” he said, and the line went dead. How cool is that? Very
X-files
. Just a dead line. No “bye-bye, see you later”. Just cut the line…

Sheelagh brought my drink over. “Will you be wanting a room?” she asked.

“A room?”

“Sure, we’ve got a couple. Unless,” she twinkled at me, “you’ll be after one between you…?”

I blushed again. “We really are just colleagues.”

“But you’d like to be…?”

I thought about Docherty. Man, he was fine. Flawless and sultry and dark and brooding. Mmm.

Sheelagh was watching me. “I’ll get you a room,” she said.

When Docherty came back he asked her if there was a taxi firm nearby. She shook her head.

“There’s one out in Ballycrag,” she added doubtfully, not looking at me. “But they’re not so good in the afternoons. What I’d suggest is you get a room here and maybe try them tomorrow. That motor of yours doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere.”

“I think I’ll call them anyway,” Docherty said, reaching for his mobile.

“No!” Sheelagh grabbed her phone. “I’ll call them for you. Sit down and have another drink. On the house for all your troubles.”

Docherty, whatever else he might be, was also patently Irish, and accepted the free Guinness while Sheelagh pretended to call the taxi firm in Ballycrag (had to be a made-up name) and looked disappointed.

“They can’t get a taxi out tonight,” she said, looking at us mournfully, and Docherty sighed.

“I’ve spent too long living in cities,” he muttered. “Do you have a couple of rooms?”

“We’ve just the one.”

Docherty looked at me, and I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could. “I don’t mind sharing,” I said. “We’re both grown-ups.”

“We’ll take it then,” he said to Sheelagh, who gave me an outrageous wink when Docherty had turned his back to her.

“Do you have any luggage?”

“No. The airline lost it.” Bloody stupid Ace. Can’t trust a low-cost airline with anything.

We sat in the pub for another couple of hours as the rain continued to patter down outside, watching the bar fill up, listening to the happy banter of proper Irish people, breathing in the rich earthy smell of the peat fire, drinking a lot more…

Okay, so I’m a lightweight. I shouldn’t be, because I’m five foot ten and built like Norma Jean Baker.

Come to think of it, wasn’t her maiden name Docherty?

I looked up at the man sitting beside me, as silent now as he had been in the car, and felt a wave of lust. Sod Luke and his stupid casual sex philosophy. That only worked with people you weren’t going to see again. I wanted a hot night with a sexy, brooding man. A man like Docherty.

I reached out and touched his arm. “Docherty…”

He looked at me, then his watch. “I think I’ll go to bed.”

“I think I’ll join you.” I stood up and wobbled slightly. Docherty caught me before I fell.

“I think that’s a good idea.”

Sheelagh gave me a thumbs-up as we passed the bar and made our way up the little staircase to the room Docherty had the key for. It was small and charming, with a patchwork bedspread and flowers in the window. There was one bed, and it was a double.

“Which side do you want?” Docherty looked at the bed, not at me.

“Which one do you want?” I batted my eyelashes.

He gave me a look. “Sophie, how much have you had to drink?”

I frowned. “I can’t remember. Maybe a little bit too much. But I feel fine,” I assured him, and pulled off my sweater.

“You don’t look fine,” Docherty said, and I glanced at the mirror. I thought I looked great—dishevelled and flushed, like a nineteenth century heroine. Shame my bodice wasn’t ripped, but there’s not much you can do with a jersey top.

I pulled said top off, and Docherty narrowed his eyes at me.

“What are you doing?”

I tried to make my voice go all Kathleen Turner seductive, but ended up sounding more like Marge Simpson. “I can’t sleep in my clothes. And besides,” I walked boldly over and aimed my DD-cups at him, “I'm not sure I’ll have much use for them tonight anyway.”

Docherty looked me over slowly. I pulled in my stomach.

“Sophie,” he said in a low voice, and I looked up eagerly. “Without wanting to go all Dustin Hoffman—” God, even the way he said that was sexy: Dosstin. Mmm… “—are you trying to seduce me?”

I pouted. “Would you like me to seduce you?”

There was a long silence, during which I started to feel ever so slightly foolish.

“I thought you had something going on with Luke.”

I stamped my foot. “No,” I said in frustration. “I have nothing going on with Luke.”

“So why were you staying at his place last night?”

“I told you, I was on the sofa. Nothing happened. I was traumatised.”

“Are you still traumatised?”

“No.” Just drunk and really horny.

Docherty looked at me for a long time, and I was just about to admit to a crushing defeat and step away when he cupped my face in his hands and kissed me, long and hard.

And when I say hard, I mean
hard
.

“I thought I was supposed to be seducing you,” I said breathlessly when he let me go, hot and flushed and very excited.

“Change of plan,” Docherty said, and kissed me again, pressing me down onto the patchwork throw, doing interesting things in the area of my bra. “Just tell me one thing.”

“Mmm?”

“This is not about Luke.”

I blinked, the heat receding slightly. “Why would it be about Luke?”

“You’ve just got out of a relationship with him—”

“There was no relationship.”

Docherty rolled his eyes. “Right, and I’m David Beckham.”

Actually, there was a sort of resemblance. If Becks had dark hair and a brooding expression and bigger shoulders and a totally different face. And was Irish.

“That was the problem,” I clarified. “He didn’t want any kind of relationship.”

Docherty moved back a few inches. “You want a relationship with me?”

“No! No, I just want to have sex.”

He frowned. “I don’t get it.”

What’s not to get? Was he simple?

“You do know what sex is?”

“I defined it,” Docherty said, and one look at his dark, liquid eyes told me he wasn’t joking. “But I don’t understand the relationship part. Spell it out for me.”

“I can’t sleep with Luke because I want a proper relationship with him. But I don’t want a relationship with you, so it’s okay to sleep with you.” It was perfectly obvious to me.

Docherty frowned. “So you just want to sleep with me because you can’t sleep with Luke, for fear of getting involved?”

“Yes!” I was glad he’d got it. I pulled him back down to me. “Where were we?”

But Docherty seemed less eager. “I’m not sure I like being a substitute,” he said. “This is all about Luke, isn’t it? You want him more than me, don’t you?”

Well, duh.

Docherty is sexy. Really, really sexy. And I was incredibly flattered that he wanted me. Believe me, I was appreciating this a whole lot.
But
, and it’s a big but, he wasn’t Luke. And Luke was who I wanted.

Not Docherty.

“Oh, bollocks.” I flopped back on the bed. “See, that just spoiled the mood.”

Docherty moved away. “Thought it might.”

I glared up at him, trying to figure out if the squishy feeling in my stomach was some kind of kindly emotion for Luke, or just good old-fashioned nausea. “You did that on purpose.”

“You’d have regretted it when you were sober.”

“Duh. Isn’t that the point of a one-night stand?”

Docherty gave a faint smile. “Do you want to use the bathroom first?”

I shook my head. “You go.”

I watched him leave the room, still dark and sexy, and sighed in annoyance. The really stupid thing was that he was right. Damn him. Right about me, right about Luke. Right, right, right, as a one-legged drill sergeant might have said.

God, I am drunk.

When I next opened my eyes, it was morning, and I was crashed out in my underwear. I didn’t remember taking my jeans off, but then I had been really plastered. My mouth was dry and my head was thumping. The sunlight stabbed my eyes.

I managed to drag myself onto my back and look around. Docherty was nowhere to be seen.

The bathroom was across the hall, and I threw my fleece pullover over my underwear to stumble out there and try and make myself slightly more presentable. I had no shampoo so a shower would have done more harm than good. There was a deodorant in my bag and a little bottle of moisturiser, and I managed to smudge on a little bit of makeup to make myself feel more human. I filled up my water bottle and drained it about ten times, plugged my phones into their battery-powered chargers, and went back to the bedroom.

I met Docherty in the corridor. He looked over the low-zipped fleece and my bare legs, and raised his eyebrows.

“Morning,” I croaked.

“Morning. Did you sleep well?”

I yawned and nodded and pushed open the door to the bedroom. Docherty stood and watched me pull on my jeans and T-shirt, then he said, “There’s breakfast downstairs if you’re hungry.”

I thought about it. “Will it be greasy?”

“I should think so.”

“Lead on.”

Sheelagh kept giving me saucy looks and winking as she served me fried eggs and tomatoes and waffles and toast. She was very surprised to hear I was a vegetarian, and offered me kippers instead of sausages. I politely declined.

“Flaherty fixed the car,” Docherty said. He was drinking white coffee. No food. “We can be on our way when you’ve done.”

I nodded. More hours in a car. Just what my hangover needed.

We said goodbye to Sheelagh, promised to come back and see her some time (or at least I did) and were on our way in the newly fixed Fiesta. I opened the window for air and tried to sleep, but the roads were too bumpy. Obviously Flaherty hadn’t touched the suspension.

“Docherty,” I said after a couple of dozen miles.

“Yes?”

“Last night.” I felt my colour rise. “Did I…?”

“Yes.”

I checked his face carefully for emotion. Nothing.

“Did we…?”

“No.”

Still nothing.

“You talked me out of it.”

“Yes.”

I sighed. “How come you’re so talkative?”

This earned a sideways glance. “Just naturally blabby, I guess.”

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. At least I knew he had good taste in films, even if he never watched
South
Park
.

“Do we have far to go?”

“Not far now.”

Not helpful.

About an hour later, my Nokia rang. It was Luke, and I answered with mixed feelings.

“Why the hell weren’t you answering yesterday?”

And there it was, my usual mixture of lust and irritation. No squishy feelings at all.

“No signal. And my battery’s low anyway.”

“You have your charger, right?”

“I have an emergency charger. My proper mains charger is in my suitcase. My suitcase is somewhere in the region of Kerry airport. I don’t know where the hell we are, but it isn’t Kerry.”

“Actually…” Doherty murmured, and I ignored him.

“Ace lost your luggage?” Luke asked.

“Bingo.”

“What about your gun?”

“Lost that too.”

“Fantastic.”

“My thoughts exactly. Well, actually, my thoughts are a hundred percent unrepeatable, but there you go.”

“Did you get anything from this Kennedy guy?”

“Haven’t got there yet.”

“What?”

I relayed the story of the Day From Hell, carefully talking round the bit where I’d tried to seduce Docherty. “So it might be another night.”

“Marvellous.”

“Why do you sound so cheerful?”

Luke sighed. “Because your friend Angel feels guilty about the crash on Wednesday, so she’s been dragging me up to the hospital to go and see your friend Harvey.”

I smiled. “Isn’t Macbeth supposed to be watching her?”

“Macbeth has managed to be very busy whenever Angel wants to do anything remotely girlie. As has Maria. I am going
nuts
here.”

“
Poverino
,” I said, without much sympathy. I’m not exactly sure what that means, Luke used to say it when he was being Italian and I was being pathetic at the airport. But it sounds very sympathetic, even in a sarcastic tone of voice.

It’s probably obscene.

“Anyway,” he said. “We went up to the crash site. Still a big mess.”

“If you find a hubcap, that’s Ted’s.”

“I’ll bear that in mind. The Scoobie is still there with a big old Police Aware sticker on it. We asked the neighbours—”

“What neighbours?”

“About a mile up the road.”

Of course.

“They called the police on it because it was blocking the road. So now it’s in a lay-by instead. I wouldn’t count on anyone retrieving it, either, because you know what?”

I think I could guess. “It was stolen?”

“Clever bunny. They have another couple of performance cars on their list—not Porsches or anything like that, but someone nicked an Evo VII on Wednesday night and it hasn’t been seen since.”

“He knows his cars.”

“About as well as you do.”

I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not.

“It
could
be coincidence…”

“I don't believe in them and I know you don’t, either.”

“Great. Has Maria got anywhere with those files? Greg Winter’s last mission?”

“His last mission was before IC died. He was on leave when he was shot.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Nope. Oh, and one more thing…”

“Surprise me.”

“Greg was killed with a .22, right?”

“Right.”

“I was shot with a .22. And so was Petr. Same gun.”

I whistled. “Can Karen tell if it’s the same gun that got Greg?”

“Doubtful. But you know, I wouldn’t really be that surprised.”

Fantastic. I ended the call and looked over at Docherty. “The gun that shot Luke is the same gun that killed Petr.”

“What a surprise.”

“Same calibre as the gun that shot Greg Winter.”

“Lots of people have .22s.”

“Well, yeah. But I still think there’s something icky about it.”

Docherty nearly smiled at that. “Icky? Is that a professional term?”

I prickled. “It is now.”

He turned off the little road onto a very narrow boreen. “Not far now.”

He said that an hour ago.

But this time he meant it. At the end of the little track was a gate, and through the gate was a courtyard with chickens and a couple of collies scratching about. The buildings on three sides were neat and clean. Flowers in the windows. Clean steps. Nice.

“Is this it?” I asked Docherty.

“This is it.”

We got out of the car and I stretched, feeling horribly scruffy. And then we went up the steps and into a big scrubbed kitchen where a beautiful black-haired girl was kneading bread, and I felt even scruffier.

Docherty said something to her in Irish, and she nodded and smiled and made a reply. I don’t understand Irish at all. They have the same alphabet as us, but they seem to approach it sort of sideways.

“This is Sophie,” Docherty said, and I smiled nervously. “Sophie, this is Éibhlís Kennedy.”

I blinked. Did he just call her Eyelash?

“That’s an unusual name,” I ventured. “How are you spelling that?”

She paused, as if she couldn’t remember, then spelled it out. See? Sideways. “The ‘E’ and the second ‘I’ have acute accents. It’s quite complicated. They were going to call me Mary.”

Irish. Different species.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just thought the professor would be older. And, you know, a guy.”

Docherty and Éibhlís smiled.

“He is.” Éibhlís said. “I’m his daughter.”

Ah. I felt my face flush.

“Would you be wanting anything to eat?” she asked, and I closed my eyes and thought about barmbrack and Irish butter and natural cider. When I opened them again, Éibhlís was taking biscuits out of a packet and putting them on a plate. She opened up a large fridge and offered me mineral water, Diet Coke, Budweiser, Guinness or wine. There was English Breakfast tea or Costa Rican coffee on offer, both to be made with organic milk.

I felt Docherty’s gaze on me and said I’d just have water. Coffee would have been good, but I was so dehydrated I felt as if my body was slowly shrivelling.

“Is the old man around?” Docherty asked, and Éibhlís shrugged.

“He’s out with the horses. You’re a little bit late, so…”

A whole day. It didn’t seem to be bothering her. She poured herself a Guinness, then one for Docherty, and we followed her through to a stone-floored living room, lined with books and papers and CDs and a lot of PlayStation games.

“Do you not have any luggage?”

I shook my head. “The airline lost it.”

“Ah, well. Travelling light’s always a better option anyway.”

Hmm.

“I’ve cleared you out a room upstairs,” she said, waving her hand at a precarious staircase. “Will you be staying tonight?”

“I think so,” Docherty said. “I’ll call the airline and re-book for tomorrow.”

“So, Sophie,” Éibhlís said, “tell me about this SO17 you’re working for,” and I sprayed water all over myself.

“It’s supposed to be a secret organisation,” I said, glaring at Docherty.

“Éibhlís won’t tell anyone.”

“That’s not really the point,” I said. “Even the British police don’t know about it.”

“The British police couldn’t find their arses with both hands,” Éibhlís said dismissively. “Do you have a gun?”

“Somewhere,” I said.

“Airline lost that too,” Docherty explained.

“Some airline.”

“Well, they gave Sophie a job.”

“Hey!”

They both smiled at me. “Sure, we’re joking,” Éibhlís said. “Haven’t you heard Michael's sense of humour?”

I stared. Michael?

Now, that just spoiled the illusion. It was such a normal name. Docherty on its own sounded so much more brooding and mysterious.

There was the sound of clattering hooves outside and I looked out of the little window to see a fit man in his sixties swinging off a large chestnut horse. Éibhlís got up and went outside to him, and Docherty followed her, and I sat there for a few seconds before following, too. I wasn’t sure I totally got this. I’d been expecting— Well, I don’t know what I was expecting. A musty old man in a college library, maybe? An ancient geezer in a wheelchair? Not a robust man with a tan, handing the reins of the horse to his daughter and clapping Docherty on the back. They exchanged a rapid stream of Irish that sounded impressive but could really have been a shopping list for all I knew. I don’t do languages. Especially not ones that need you to learn the alphabet all over again.

Professor Kennedy—for I assumed that was who he was—looked me over and said something in Irish.

I blinked politely. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“
Sasanach
,” Docherty said, and I frowned suspiciously.

“What did you just call me?”

“English,” Docherty said, and Kennedy laughed.

“And sure you’re an English Rose,” the professor said, lifting my chin. “Even if you are hungover.”

I blushed bright pink.

“Éibhlís,” Kennedy yelled. “Is there any lunch to be had?”

She yelled back something and Kennedy nodded. “How’s chicken soup for you?”

I winced. “Er, I don’t eat meat,” I said, and felt like the
Big Fat Greek Wedding
girl.
“What do you mean, he don’t eat no meat?”

“None at all?” Kennedy was staring.

“Erm, no. I eat fish,” I volunteered.

“Why?”

“Well, because I could kill a fish,” I said, wanting to curl up and die.

Kennedy looked at me for a long while, then he laughed. “Sure, that’s good reasoning,” he said. “Are you sure you’re not Irish?”

“I think my mother’s grandfather was. But that might be wishful thinking.”

“Everyone wants a bit of Irish in them,” Docherty said, with a meaningfully penetrating stare at me that made—I swear—even my hair blush.

I ended up having bread and cheese for lunch, but since the bread had been made that morning and the cheese was fresh Irish cheddar, I was more than happy. I sat there at the big oak table in the kitchen, feet tapping the slate floor, listening to a burble of Irish voices. Éibhlís came back in and got some soup, and was soon arguing with her father about the Internet. Her position was that it was a great tool for communication and information, not to mention shopping, and he maintained that it was a ploy for global domination by the Yanks. I wasn’t sure who I agreed with most, because they were both so bloody entertaining. Docherty kept out of the discussion, and I got to wondering if he even knew what the Internet was. He didn’t really seem like one for technology.

Éibhlís cleared away our plates and stacked them in the dishwasher next to the huge old-fashioned farmhouse sink. So much for bucolic Oirishness.

“Now then.” Kennedy got to his feet and patted his flat belly. “What is it you’ve come all the way out here for?”

I glanced at Docherty but he wasn’t forthcoming.

“
Michael
said you might be able to tell me something about this artefact we’re trying to trace,” I said, ignoring Docherty’s glare. “It’s Mongolian, called the Xe La.”

Kennedy frowned and went through the living room into a very crowded study. It might have been a large room, were it not for the shelves and shelves of cascading books and files, cases of stony things, three computers and 3D map of Ireland spread out on a large table.

“Mongolian,” he said. “I don’t know of anything… What era?”

I blinked. “I don’t know. Nobody knows. We’re not even totally sure it’s Mongolian.”

Kennedy raised his palms. “Not even sure it’s Mongolian,” he muttered. “Do you know what it looks like?”

I shook my head.

“What it does?”

“Does?”

“All artefacts do something. Even if it’s only in legend. The best ones earn you money while they’re doing it,” he said, and I understood from this where the horses had come from.